MUSEUMEATS

A bit about the project.

​MuseumEats is an organization that aims to build community and the connection between source and stomach.The workshops offer a holistic perspective: from regenerative harvest and permaculture, to ethics in hipster foodism and paths to food security. For information on pay structure and curriculum, visit the 'wildcrafting workshops' section.

WHO IS MUSEUMEATS?​

Photo by Caroline Chiu

Camille Flanjak (Cam) is the director of MuseumEats. She originally co-founded the project as a popup event and catering business. Because of demand from MuseumEats' diners and participants, the 'official' Workshop program began in 2013. Since then, the main focus of MuseumEats has been to train folks to think critically about their food in order to fully enjoy and understand the privilege of eating it.

A CODA (Child Of Deaf Adults) with a penchant for rebellion, Cam enriches her understandings of food systems, sustainability, and socially balanced facilitation through the study of permaculture, wildcrafting, and wine.

​THE GOAL is for MuseumEats to become a collective of folks interested in driving an ethical food culture in the PNW. This is only made possible with all of MuseumEats' co-mentors, teachers, chefs, workshop participants, diners, and contributors.

THE ETHICS

​MuseumEats Wildcrafting Principles come from a combination of several schools of thought.

1- The Wildcrafter's Promise.

First and foremost the focus is regeneration and holistic connection (holism). While Cam won't assert any type of religious practice during the workshops, she does follow a Code of Ethics that includes an important measure of spirituality, as taught by the Wildcraft Forest School in Lumby, BC. This also means that MuseumEats and its participants should draw a clear distinction between foraging and wildcrafting: wherein Foraging is taking/harvesting/collecting from the wild and Wildcrafting is a process that includes ourselves, the harvesters, in the natural systems and giving back by way of stewardship.

2 - Social Justice

Included in the practice of holism is the acknowledgement that many of the folks wildcrafting with MuseumEats--including the facilitator--are of settler descent. So, when we are wildcrafting on Indigenous Territory (remember, unceded Indigenous Territory constitutes 95% of the land in British Columbia) not only is it of paramount importance to respect resources, it is essential to follow a code of ethics that encourages regeneration and healthy ecosystems while also taking into account that these resources are used daily by Indigenous Peoples and Wildlife that depend on them for survival. Seeing this connection between Indigenous People and the land may remind folks of settler descent that through colonization, their ancestors or they, themselves have lost that connection. This tear between people and their homelands and ancestry is part of the violence of colonization. The hope is that by rebuilding this connection with the land we can foster some healing of this ancestral trauma.

Cam is constantly interrogating how MuseumEats operates in order to work towards reconciliation, decolonization, and accessibility. This means seeking permission to study and eat from the forests guarded and stewarded by our Indigenous Nations, and working under their guidance and influence in protection of the land. It also means working to provide workshops that are accessible by auditing the spaces where they are being held, offering workshops that are either interpreted or exclusively taught in ASL (American Sign Language), and being open to feedback and change. Working towards social justice is an ongoing process that requires open hearts on all fronts, but it especially requires listening and learning on the part of the privileged (enable-bodied, white, settler, etc). While MuseumEats' attempt has not been free of mistakes, owning these mistakes and growing from them is what will bring us closer to a just society. If you have wisdom, time and/or energy to give Cam feedback or support in this process, please feel welcomed and encouraged to do so: museumeats@gmail.com.

3 - Urban Wildcrafting

​Outside of forests, Cam and her friends teach Urban Wildcrafting. Along with these workshops come concerns about pollution and private property. These are political issues that we navigate on a daily basis, and through workshops and community events we seek to generate more dialogue and expel fearful and competitive notions.

4 - Wild Dynamic Permaculture​Besides the Ethic of Wildcraft coming from the Wildcraft Forest, MuseumEats also draws from Permaculture Principles. Permaculture itself is a system of agricultural and social design principles that utilize patterns and features from natural ecosystems. Within its history, permaculture has a tradition of appropriation and sexism that is simultaneously being challenged and promoted today. In order to breach a different path using many of the excellent tools found in the teachings of permaculture, Don Elzer has coined the title, "Wild Dynamic Permaculture," which points toward the ever-changing climate, increasing awareness of social justice, and protection of 'natural systems' in order to keep them 'wild.' Included in this thinking is an ethic of care of the earth, care for people, and fair share that MuseumEats promotes as part of the curriculum.

5 - The Restaurant Industry

Because the foundation of MuseumEats is rooted in the food industry, the founders have been able to see how terribly unsustainable, sexist, classist, racist, capitalist, oppressive, and wasteful it can be. Much of this greed and ego fuels the pretty things on diner's plates and isn't actually nourishing in a holistic sense. The end game is to influence restaurant culture to be something closer to socially just - to make food from restaurants nourishing on all the levels, and to bring to light the harm of mass-productive harvest (wild, monocrop, or otherwise).